


Jyn Appreciation Week prompts

by rcmsw



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Jyn appreciation week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 01:49:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11003475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcmsw/pseuds/rcmsw
Summary: Collection of my writing for Jyn Appreciation Week.





	1. Day 2 - Luxury

In her early years, on Coruscant and even Lah’mu, Jyn had every comfort she could need - had never thought to want.  
Her own bed sat warm and cozy within her own room. Her favorite toy was always within reach. Food was delicious and fresh and ready when she was hungry.  
Most importantly, Mama and Papa were there, alive and with her.  
With the shot from a blaster and the departing of a ship, she soon learned what it meant to want, to need. Luxury is only understood with the absence of it. 

From that day, she is taught a definition of the word.  
Luxury is the bottom of a bunk with a thin, rough sheet. A blaster that fits into the palm of her hand. Training that teaches her to duck, tackle, claw and fight. It’s understanding that she comes second to the only person she has left in the world. She takes comfort in believing so fiercely in the cause herself that she does not have time to know who she is - to question, to ache, to fear, to miss.

When she is sixteen, the definition shifts again. A cavern closes on her once more, this time by hands that are not hers, by the hands that had first freed her, that were supposed to take care of her. They’re the last hands she’ll ever trust besides her own. She discovers then that luxury is tears that have already learned to fall silently in the dark. It’s the bruises on her knuckles - the comfort that her own fists must always be by her side. 

She keeps her head low, in an attempt to support the weight crushing down on her shoulders. The position is uncomfortable, but still she refuses to look up. Seeing what hung there would bring her more discomfort still. Luxury is surviving. 

The galaxy continues to shatter, but she pretends it doesn’t matter. She cannot fix something when she herself is struggling to stay intact. Her hands are full with her own pieces. The Empire passes her, but she looks away. She’s not compliant. Stormtroopers are downed by her hands, moffs misplace money into her pockets and informants lose voices and lives in street fights. You don’t get sentenced to Wobani without a little resistance. But luxury is ignoring the small nagging voice saying she could do more, be more. 

Luxury is never being called out for it. Until a man who has fought every time she hasn’t spits the word into her face. Until the man who can truly understand her loss and pain shows her there’s another way. A man whose yielding eyes don’t match the judgement in the statement. His words are ones of defense as he faces his own luxury of being able to justify anything for the cause. But she sees the truth in them reflected back in the mirror of his face. 

At the age of 21, it is this same man who shows her the true meaning of luxury. Because luxury is having someone who always comes back for you. Luxury is a home and a family. And Cassian is hers.


	2. Day 4 - Need

With a heavy groan, the door closes and Jyn is left in darkness. As the shadows engulf the room, she feels a desperate need rise in her - for the light, for a hand to hold, for someone beside her. 

She grips her blaster in her palm instead and takes a deep breath. She’s not afraid of the dark. That fear had left her long ago after learning to sleep without the shining lights of Coruscant. All she has to do is wait til morning, and Saw will be back. She doesn’t doubt it. Saw is her father now - had been there every time and in every way her real one hadn’t - and he wouldn't leave her.

She soon realizes she should have learned the first time. 

The sun rises, but the darkness remains. Saw does not return. And the need is still there - the need for a light, for comfort, for company. 

She tells herself it’s not a need, but a want. A childish desire that Saw and all his training wasn’t able to break from her. But Saw is the one that shut her in, so she rebels against anything he taught her. 

The darkness hangs over her, and she accepts it as her own. But a piece of her never stops searching for more, even if she does not admit it. On countless planets and under every alias, the need follows her. Etched into her skin and painted across her eyes, she could not leave it behind anymore than she could her own body. 

Amidst every world and with every name, she finds only more shadows. 

On Wobani it finally shrouds her, falling like a sheet over her body as she moves closer and closer to her inevitable death. The end to the survival she’s fought so hard for will find her soon in this prison, and she’ll see it coming. Then the light comes spilling back in, through the door of the transport and she runs toward it. The need explodes from her again, filling her dark green eyes with its demand. 

No one else sees it, though she feels like it must be written in her countenance. No one except Cassian Andor. It unnerves him in a way he cannot understand. Yet the look does not drive him away. Instead he is drawn in by it. He sees the need, but does not realize he wants to fill it. 

For a moment, the need leaves her. For what seems like forever, she is empty. Her knees hit the rough stone in Saw’s shadow, but she does not feel the bruises forming. Light streams in through the opening behind her, but she cannot see its brightness, cannot feel its warmth. She hears only her father’s words, echoing in her ears so fiercely they could burst from the impact. Nothing else - until she hears his voice. Cassian’s voice, shouting her name. Her eyes meet his, and she is whole once more. 

The decision is set in her mind. She knows what she needs to do as soon as the words of her father’s message leave her mouth. The others may doubt her, but it does not matter. She will not be alone. Her father will be by her side. Whatever their mistakes may be, they will do what is necessary together. 

She never learns. With a blast of light, her father is struck down. He leaves her once again, his hand slipping from her grasp. 

The need is stronger now, coursing through her body with the quick beats of her heart. 

This time she does something about it. 

She has a plan, and that brings her a comfort she has not known in years. Though the Alliance refuses to give her what she needs, someone else steps in. They surround her with words of welcome, with squeezing palms and hands on shoulders, with a name for all of them. In the cramped hold of a stolen cargo ship, she finds everything she ever needed. 

When it is all over, when her mission is complete and the plans have been sent, the door opens this time with a whoosh to a blinding light. The darkness is gone, and she is not alone. Cassian sits beside her, the one person who never left her, and she reaches for his hand. It fills her own. Blinking against the brightness, she stares up at him, listens past the silence to hear his words. A peace settles over her, and she feels she’ll never know the need again.

She’s wrong. 

The sun fills their room with a soft light, shining down the pale skin of her back. His fingers follow its path, skimming slowly up and down her spine. When his gaze finds hers, he sees a need he recognizes, softer now than the one he first found in her eyes. He knows how to fill it.


	3. Day 5 - Hope

A blast hits Jyn in the form of Draven’s words, level and composed. 

“He missed his last check in by a week now. By standard protocol he is considered missing in action. As you’re listed as his emergency contact…”

Everything else that follows is muffled. Nothing more matters. 

Blood pumps brutally through her body, too fast and too loud. She wants to yell and scream at Draven - for saying the words, for giving her the news with no emotion, for sending Cassian on the mission in the first place. Her body burns to move, to spring from the spot where she stands, sprint towards the hangar and chase wildly after him. 

She stays still and listens. 

Jyn’s heart squeezes, as if the words themselves are wrapping tightly inside of her, threatening to stop it from beating. They’re powerful enough, she thinks. The words alone could kill her, break her.

They don’t.

Her hatch is gone, but she has something stronger to shield her from them. Something he gave her - hope. A week is a long time as far as checks in go, but she knows he’s gone longer. They both have. She’s never been one to adhere to protocol, and Cassian himself bends the rules on ops. He could still be alright, she thinks. Because if she has faith in anything in this galaxy, it’s Cassian. 

Without thought, her hand finds it way to the crystal around her neck, gripping it fiercely against her palm. As the corners dig in, she hears echoes of other people’s voices drowning out the clipped tone of Draven. Her mother telling her to trust in the Force, Chirrut chanting that all is as the Force wills it and Cassian reminding her that everything is built on hope. 

Deafening silence pulls her back into the room. Draven has finished his little speech, and has nothing more to offer her. She finds she’s relieved he doesn’t attempt words of condolence or concern. Whatever value he assigns to Cassian, as an asset for the rebellion, she doesn’t want to hear. It can’t come close to how much he means to her. 

Shaky legs lift her from her seat, struggling to support the new heaviness that has settled in her body. Her steps, though, are determined. Whatever reaction she may have to this, she won’t have it in front of Draven, or anyone. This burden is hers to bear alone. She moves out of the room, making for her own quarters but comes up short as soon as the doors slide shut behind her. 

In the empty hallway, Bodhi paces a tight line back and forth with small quick steps. His head hangs down against his chest, his hand coming up to run quickly through his hair. Despite her continued concern, the tension in her eases at the sight of him. 

She still forgets sometimes, that she is no longer alone. Bodhi is there, waiting for her, refusing to leave her to deal with this alone. 

He turns to her then, a small hopeful smile on his face. It falls when his eyes meet hers. Impossibly, she feels the weight lighten and increase at his look. From the moment she first hauled him into the ship on Jedha as his world crumbled around them, Jyn has felt an affectionate need to protect him. She dreads telling him this news. But a different side of her, the one she tried to bury during her time alone, is thankful to have someone to share the burden. They’ve made a little family, the three of them, and she can knows he cares about Cassian as much as she does. 

His shoulders slump at her words, his head nodding too often and too quickly as if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. His lips part a few times, before the words finally come flowing out, in his quick unstemmed way. 

“He’ll be ok, Jyn” he urges. Bodhi’s always had his own faith, further reinforced by the force that is Captain Andor. “I mean, it’s Cassian, right? The guy’s been through the worst several times over and always makes it back. Back home, back to you, to us.” 

“Yeah he will be,” she whispers. His words feed the hope inside her, but she still wishes her confidence was half as strong as her uneven voice. “He has to be.” 

If her need alone could bring him home, he’d already be beside her. 

Two more days pass, and the hope that has nestled in her chest begins to turn to something sharper, more desperate. An old instinct wishes it would vanish completely. It may only serve to prolong the inevitable pain, making it stronger still. But she has new instincts now, ones that allow her to grasp onto every piece of hope until it slips like sand through her fingers. 

On the second day, she realizes they’d hardly said goodbye to each other, not really, not in a way that meant something. Missions were too frequent, and the two of them too reserved, to have some big send off for every one. She struggles to remember the last time she saw him. Their time away from base overlapped, meaning they often went months without seeing each other. She huffs in frustration at the failing of her mind, and instead heads to the training room, where she knows her body will not fail to give her some relief. 

The moment comes to her in a dream that night, in a sleep heavy from physical exertion and emotional exhaustion. Though it’s hazy and bright, she knows the scene is from a memory. 

With a near-empty pack slung over her shoulders, she weaves her way through the crowded hangar for her debrief. Amid the faces, both familiar and unknown, she spots the one that draws a smile to her lips. Cassian strides towards her, his own bag on his back, heading towards his ship, unnaturally away from her. They pause briefly, his arm winding around her waist to spin her towards him. He leans down to kiss her, light and quick on her lips. The motion is simple, casual, like they’d have endless opportunities to do it again. And with that, they continue moving in their opposite directions. 

“Be safe,” she yells after him, hoping he hears her over the noise of the base. “And don’t do anything stupid.” 

He laughs at that, the sound so rare it still strikes her. He keeps walking but turns, a smile on his face. 

“Follow your own advice, Jyn” he calls back at her. 

And that had been it.

But tonight her dreams are kind to her, bringing to life the hope that still rests inside her. 

His ship lands in the hangar bay, and he steps out of it, scuffed up, but safe and home, shining bright, his hands reaching out for her. Her feet carry her to him before her mind can process it, and she finds herself jumping to him. With a breathless laugh, he catches her in his arms, wraps her tightly. His head buries into her shoulder, and his beard scratches against the skin of her neck. She clings to him, taking in the smell of blaster gas and dust and ship oil that is distinctly Cassian. 

When she wakes, she can still smell him, still feel the phantom grip of his arms clutching her to him. The weight of his absence presses down on her, crushing her chest. Short breaths reach her lungs, and she struggles to calm herself. Over the sound of her own gasps, she hears the door to her room slide open. Before she can turn completely, before she can grab her blaster, an achingly familiar voice reaches her eyes.

“Jyn.” 

His hands find her, the warmth and weight she had melted into moments ago in dreams now winding around her once more. Her own arms encircle him and she pulls him down beside her on the bed so she can nestle further into him. Pressed against his chest, she feels his steady heartbeat, matches her breathing its rhythm. 

With no light in the room, she roams her hands over him to check for new injuries. The left side of his face is marked with a gash. Her fingers hover over it, tracing its length.

“You should get bacta on this,” she murmurs.

“In the morning,” he whispers back, his lips pressing against her forehead. 

She should argue with him, but she can’t find the strength to fight for anything that would take him out of her arms. Instead she places her lips lightly to the skin that’s already beginning to pucker and scar, kissing softly along his face. When she’s covered the wound from end to end, her lips drift down to his mouth. She kisses him fully, drawn out, enjoying each moment, each flick of their tongues and pull of their lips. 

They may not have dramatic farewells, but she’s determined to remember this reunion.


End file.
